Thus missionaries had incentive to fight abuses. If colonial exploitation was extreme, it angered indigenous people against the West and made mission work difficult. Missionaries also constrained colonial abuses when they were independent from state control (i.e., chose their own leaders and raised their own funds). Other religious groups invested in mass vernacular education primarily when competing with Protestants. Governments wanted a small educated elite that they could control. Protestant missionaries were central to expanding formal education in the colonies because they wanted people to read the Bible in their own language. Protestants were not able to win religious liberty in most other European colonizers during the entire period of colonization. Initially the British restricted missions in their colonies, but Evangelical Protestants forced the British to allow religious liberty in 1813. In particular, religious groups were more independent from state control in British colonies than in historically-Catholic colonies (i.e., colonies of France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, and Italy). However, British colonial elites were more divided and thus more constrained. I argue that former British colonies are distinct not because Great Britain was a democracy – so were France and Belgium during the late 19th and early 20th century.
Cross-national empirical research consistently suggests that, on average, former British colonies are both more democratic and have more stable democratic transitions.
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